


To Judge a Book

by indiscriminate_indecision



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora is a furry, Biting, F/F, Frottage, Hair Pulling, Mentioned bondage, Scent Kink, adora has a danger kink, adora has flowcharts, adora is horny and repressed, adora's an adrenaline junkie, adora's two seconds away from handing out a post-sex survey, catra is horny, catra still has an adora kink, don't believe everything you read in books, everyone's got issues but it's all background stuff, first time with toys, horde kids have no sex education, it's for her own good, no editing we die like overtired idiots who stayed up all night, now look at it, oh my god i have to tag it, put your muscles to work adora, service top Adora, someone tell adora about strap-ons, these tags don't sum up all the nonsense i better add more, they work it out it's fine, this was supposed to be short smut, use them for the greater good, what the fuck is anatomy don't @ me, what the hell did i write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:06:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiscriminate_indecision/pseuds/indiscriminate_indecision
Summary: People wouldn't do that, would they? Just open a book and start writing LIES?Alternative title: Adora's Furry Adventures“Catra,” she begins, and doesn’t let Catra’s dry ’uh-huh’ deter her. “I’ve been doing a lot of research lately, and I—”“Is this about the porn?” Catra interjects, moving both arms around Adora’s shoulders to lace her fingers behind her neck, pulling her weight against them in a bid to draw Adora closer again. “Because you have pretty bad taste.”
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 200





	To Judge a Book

**Author's Note:**

> dear god. you can tell the exact point it turned 4am and i started giving up.
> 
> hint: it's at the 10k mark.
> 
> just remember, as you're reading. you're the one who has the power to close the tab and walk away.

It’s research, Adora swears.

Like anything else she studies, she’s dedicated herself wholly to it. She has pages of notes from each text, highlighting recurring themes and terms to collate. She’s been spending every free moment on this, poring over the translations Darla’s provided in secret, her activities hidden from the rest of the Squad. She didn’t mean to not tell them, it’s just – one thing led to another, and now she’s in so deep that if word gets out about what she’s doing, she’ll never live it down.

_Brightpaw’s tongue dived inside her, setting off another keening mewl that was music to her ears. Keensight was a wonderful instrument to play; touched in the right places, she made the most incredible noises – beautiful, intense, delicious cries of pleasure as she writhed under the wet caresses of Brightpaw’s mouth._

_‘_ Mewling’, Adora writes again on her list with a frown. It’s appeared in every one of the texts she’s read, often appearing multiple times in single scenes, which means it must be a common thing to do. But, it’s just -- _Catra_ doesn’t mewl. Her nails scrape in Adora’s hair and her hips roll her into Adora’s mouth and she cries Adora’s name as she comes, but she’s never once _mewled_ and all of this mounting evidence is indicating that she should be. Which means that Adora’s missing something, some vital step in satisfying her, and she won’t stop her researching until she’s figured out what.

This hadn’t started as a quest to fix her sexual shortcomings. They’d agreed to go to the Magicat’s home planet as a special favour to the Queen of Half-Moon, to re-establish a connection between the Etherian colony and their long ( _long_ )-lost cousins. The emissary the Queen had sent to them had apparently expected a warmer reception than the one Catra had given him, given how surprised he’d been by her initial flat refusal; but a long string of negotiations later, Catra had secured them full access to the Magicat’s unique tech, a small team of engineers to install a bunch of it in their ship, a stipend from Half-Moon’s considerable vaults, enough food rations to cover the estimated length of the trip, and a random statue they’d passed on their way to meet with the Queen in person. And a basket of the dried herbs that had been scattered around the throne room, the ones Adora thought smelled kind of weird and musty. Catra had assured her that she was wrong and her nose was broken, and Adora had frowned but hung them up around the ship anyway. The engineers Catra had commandeered seemed to appreciate them at least, congregating in the areas she’d placed them, and Adora had had to concede that maybe there really was something wrong with her nose after all.

(She’d also tried sniffing them as She-Ra, just in case the magic made her better at smelling things, but all she’d managed to do like that was accidentally inhale some. She’d thought about biting it too, just to check, but Bow had walked in as she’d been considering it. She still hasn’t ruled it out as a possible avenue to understanding, and the only thing that’s stopping her is that it’s just a little hard to come up with good excuses for She-Ra to be wandering around the ship biting plants.)

Anyway, the engineers had each brought things to entertain themselves. Namely, books. Namely, romance books. Adora had caught sight of the cover of one as it was being read, the watercolour image of two Magicats embracing against the backdrop of Etheria’s moons drawing her eye, and she’d gotten curious. Had surreptitiously flicked through it when the engineer had set it down to go do – something, and had found herself entranced by the descriptions inside. In a few short paragraphs it taught her things Catra had never spoken about; that the retraction of her claws tingles and itches along her fingers, that the drag of them across rigid surfaces shivers pleasantly through her bones. That the kneading massage of her hands against Adora’s skin is contentment and happiness and, more than that; a claim. She’d remembered just that morning, waking up to Catra’s lazy purr and her palms pressing rhythmically against her back, and she’d felt so overfilled with – gratitude, weirdly enough, and love – that she’s pretty sure she’d started glowing.

She’d only gotten through two pages before the engineer had returned, and Adora had dropped the book with a yelp and quick (poor) excuse, laughing awkwardly and making a swift retreat.

The book had been sitting by the door when she went to bed that night, and she’d read through it hungrily while Catra had slept. Some things she’d already known: the differences in her purrs, the language of her tail. But so much of it was _new_ , like – back when they were kids, before they’d been fully trained away from showing signs of vulnerability and weakness, Catra would often rub her cheeks and neck and ears against Adora with a happy smile and a sweet little purr. Adora would do it back, of course, and it was – it was their _thing_. Their playful little way of showing how much they cared about each-other, their way of showing each-other their friendship.

Well. Turns out, it was not just an Adora-and-Catra thing, and they had not invented a wholly unique method of communication. Turns out Catra had been marking her all along, in what was apparently such a typical Magicat show of affection that it had taken until the sixth book before the action had been written with an actual _reason_. Because of course Adora couldn’t stop at just the first one. It raised so many questions she hadn’t known she’d had, and she’d strode up to the engineer the very next morning (--as determined by the Etherian-timed clocks on the ship) to thank them and ask for another.

The sixth book, incidentally, was the first that crossed the line from innocent romance into intimate activities, and Adora had zeroed in immediately on its descriptions. It was a male and a female Magicat, so of course there were – discrepancies, but the reactions depicted in the text were both so familiar and foreign that it had drawn her up short. The female stretching out across the bed, arching her back; yes, Adora was incredibly familiar with that. But the description of it being an action of trust had closed her throat, and her eyes had been wide as she’d turned the page and read of how the Magicat was offering her vulnerability to her lover, placing the care of not only her heart but also her body in their hands. It was a _very_ different meaning to what Catra’s sly smirk and confident guiding of Adora’s hands had told her, and Adora still wonders – what else has she misread?

Which is why she’s here now, on book 28. Not all of them have been novels, some have been small and flimsy volumes containing only sexual acts and nothing more. She’s tried a few of them on Catra already, and she’s enjoyed some of them – the grip at the base of her tail as Adora’s fingers work inside of her, the firm press of Adora’s palms against hers as they grind against each-other, the careful curl and pinch of Adora’s fingernails at the scruff of her neck while she bites at her collar – but others have been a total miss. Catra does not, for example, enjoy the feeling of her fur being mussed against the grain of its growth and Adora very nearly gotten slapped when her mouth had gone near Catra’s tail. But it was okay, those two things had only appeared seven and nine times respectively throughout her research. They helped her set a benchmark for the things she should be trying, and gave her a baseline to build her strategy up from.

Not all of the books came from the engineers. When they’d landed on Purrsia (--yeah, she’d giggled) and all the Magicats of their crew had been taken away into discussions (despite Catra’s objections that she had nothing to do with them, she’d still led the charge), they’d been left to explore. It was hard going, with the language barrier in place, but Adora had managed to find a bookstore; and from there, it wasn’t hard to guess which books were going to have the content she was after.

In other words, while Catra was off navigating her first real stint at actual diplomacy, Adora was out buying the most graphically rated erotica she could find.

(And –Adora just. Is so grateful for her. It hadn’t become apparent until they reached the planet, and Catra had dropped purses of Half-Moon gems on each of their laps, that none of them had considered the small issue of intergalactic currency. None of them except Catra, whose aggravated sigh and terse explanation did nothing but cause Adora’s chest to swell with pride. The Magicats had apparently always held a tradition of accepting gems; specifically, any gem compatible with their magic that could then infuse it into their tech, and Catra had _researched that_ and _used it to their advantage_ and _that’s why she insisted on a stipend_ and. Has it been mentioned that Adora loves her? Because she does. A lot. And she’s so, so glad they’re on the same side, finally. Together: where they belong.

There still hasn’t been any explanation forthcoming for the statue that’s now bolted down in the control room, but Adora is _pretty sure_ that one was just because Catra could. She’d seen the amused curl of her tail when she’d demanded it, and the smug glance Catra had given her from the corner of her eye when it was begrudgingly approved. She knows her, whatever these books might have her believe. She knows when Catra’s doing something just for fun.)

But, right. The mewling. It comes up even in Darla’s most stilted and clinical translations, and it’s been at the top of Adora’s list for so long but she just _can’t get Catra to do it_. Even in _Fifty Shades of Fur_ the bound and gagged Magicat had mewled desperately as she’d tried to seek friction against the empty air, and Adora _doesn’t get it_. Is she doing something wrong? Is she teasing Catra too much? Not teasing her enough? –Because if she delays on getting into the action any more than she already does, there’s a real risk that Catra will either actually kill her or kick her out of the bed and make Adora watch as she finishes herself off. Which. Isn’t a terrible thing, actually? Even thinking about being made to sit there, watching Catra’s hands moving across herself, dries Adora’s mouth and causes her thighs to clench. (And is that wrong? Is it weird? That she kind of wants to be made to **Want**?? That she wants to feel that yearning aching through her, that she wants to see and smell and hear and not be allowed to touch?

\-----It’s probably weird. None of the books have depicted anything like that, so it must be some weird hangover of hers. She’ll get over it on her own.)

It’s not about her, anyway. It’s about _Catra_ , and pleasing her, and making sure that Adora’s giving to her everything that she can. It’s about making sure that there’s no room for her to ever doubt the depths of Adora’s love for her, and making sure that she knows that no matter what it takes, Adora **will** protect and provide for her.

That’s another of the frequent themes, the idea of protecting and providing. There seems to be a big connection between it and sex, which Adora doesn’t think she ever needed to be told. It’s obvious, right? It’s what she’s feeling, every time she cards her fingers through Catra’s fur, every time she tilts her chin into Catra’s kiss. A burning desire to hold her, to guard her, to defend her from the things she’s seen and lived through. To protect her from the things that would hurt her. To take her into her arms and give to her everything she’s ever wanted, everything she’s ever longed for. To make sure that she never feels unfulfilled or unwanted ever again.

And she… thinks she’s doing an okay job of it? Used to think she was, anyway. The Magicats in most of the books seem to convey it in the aftermath of sex instead of during, when they’re laying in each-others arms and purring, and Adora… can’t do that.

(She tried? Purring. Once. When they were junior cadets. Catra had choked so hard on her laughter she’d almost blacked out wheezing. She’d tried it again a few more times in private, but gave up in frustration. She just doesn’t have whatever it is that Catra has that makes it possible. All Adora can do is a weird and awkward gurgling trill, which is – not at all close. It doesn’t even begin to sound like a purr.

She’s still a little sore about it.)

So, you know. That’s… one thing she can’t do, that the Magicats in every book do for each-other. She can’t do the things the male ones do, either, which stung less once she’d gotten to the first female pair in the books she’d purchased. They’d done something with a tool, the book had said – Darla had translated it as a toy, as she’d done with the texts before it, but Adora has trouble reconciling the idea of plush dolls and wooden horses with the things happening in those texts. But Darla does that sometimes, uses words that clearly don’t match the rest of the theme, and Adora’s learned to just shrug and figure it out from the context.

But, yes. That tool. The book had described it as being short and wide at its base, and the character had – of course – mewled as her partner had pressed it inside of her. The book had described how her lips (it had taken Adora more than a few books to realize they were not talking about the ones attached to the Magicat’s mouths, and the moment of realization had occurred when she’d been down between Catra’s legs, a finger on each of the folds of slickened skin to spread them apart, and she would have jolted up to share her epiphany had it not been for Catra’s insistent hand shoving her head down) had parted to allow its girth; how it had felt pressing against her ‘inner walls’, and how the ridged base of it had settled just right to urge her instincts into overdrive; how she’d clenched tight around it as her partner had pressed and massaged the slope of her ear between their thumb and forefinger, how she’d forgotten how to do anything else but writhe against them and how afterwards, they’d left it in her; letting her body feel satiated and full while she purred, words lost, and curled into her partner.

That’s the one Adora’s still thinking of as she jots down more notes about Brightpaw’s and Keensight’s erotic adventures. A few of the books before had mentioned similar tools, but none had gone into such detail as that one. None of them had described how freeing it had felt, to surrender into the base desires it elicited. And, like – Adora loves post-sex Catra. Loves the lazy curve of her lips, loves her fingers trailing languidly over Adora’s stomach and chest, loves when she decides she still has more in her despite Adora’s exhaustion and uses her hands, her fingers, her thigh to take what she wants from her. She loves it, absolutely, but she also – she can’t stop thinking about the idea of Catra so worn out and so deeply satisfied that she feels like she’s floating, like that character was. So relaxed and given in to instincts that she’d be completely boneless in Adora’s arms, so content that she’d accept Adora’s care and tenderness. Adora wants to _look after_ Catra, in every sense, but Catra’s still so resistant to the idea of vulnerability. Adora wants her to just be able to… let go.

And mewl. She definitely still wants the mewling. That has not stopped being a problem that Adora wants to fix. She’s literally never heard Catra mewl before, doesn’t even actually know what Catra’s mewl is supposed to sound like. She has words for every noise Catra has ever made and ‘mewl’ does not describe a single one of them.

Brightpaw and Keensight don’t have anything new to offer her, and Adora closes their book with a huff and upset jut of her lip. (--Her actual one, not the euphemism for what’s between her legs.) She can’t stop thinking about that tool, or how much that Magicat had enjoyed it. She’d try to replicate it on her own, but she has no idea what it’s actually supposed to be and she – she _can’t_ risk hurting Catra with something that’s wrong. There has to be a way of finding out what it is.

The set of her jaw turns stubborn, and Adora closes her notebook. Tucks it and the novel away in what is becoming an overcrowded footlocker, and retrieves the book with the description that she wants. She takes enough time to check it against its translation, matching page to page and word to word until she can highlight the section she wants, and then pulls on her jacket and ties up her hair. Pauses to check herself in the mirror, to observe the determined narrowing of her eyes and the rigid set of her shoulders, and gives herself a stiff nod. She can do this.

\---

The mission was not an easy one, but Adora returns a few hours later _successful_. She had, stupidly, forgotten the language barrier despite her efforts to compare the text. As it turns out, shoving paragraphs of erotica in people’s faces is neither a well-considered nor generally sane thing to do. She’d _forgotten_ , okay, that people actually read those things for reasons other than as an objective study.

Doesn’t matter. The shopkeep who had been selling her the books had eventually understood, and she’d begrudgingly led Adora to a store that sold just – all kinds of things. She’s pretty sure some of them were interrogation devices? And thinking about Catra having tied her up, lifting her chin with the hilt of her old sword, Adora kind of. Gets why they’d repurpose some of those things. Yeah.

Anyway, she’d gotten what she went there for and now she owns a footlocker filled with books and that tool, and has absolutely no Half-Moon gems left to her name. Which is fine. She’s pretty sure she has everything she needs, now.

She hears the beep of the lock on their door as the entry code is tapped in, and Adora takes a deep breath, steeling herself. Her jaw twitches in a stubborn clench, and she stands at attention when the door slides open in a drag of hydraulic power.

Catra looks tired, but her eyes sharpen as soon as they land on Adora. Melog’s the one who tilts their head in concern, who mews a question. Catra’s ear twitches down at them, and her tail swishes in agitation, but she doesn’t give them an answer that Adora can hear.

“Uh oh,” she murmurs instead, stepping into the room on the balls of her feet. Adora lets her circle around her; shivers when Catra’s hand lands on her shoulder and drags across her back. Her breath hitches at the familiar curl of Catra’s tail around her leg, and it stays there, the tip twitching on her thigh as Catra presses against her other side.

“What problem are we making up this time?” She asks casually, raising a hand to Adora’s chin to turn her face towards her. Like Adora wasn’t already looking. Catra’s eyes are critical, flicking over Adora’s face before landing on her eyes and holding her gaze steadily. Adora’s pretty sure she does it just so she can see the offense flickering to life in the scrunch of her eyes and wrinkle of her nose, because that – that’s how Catra _is_.

“I don’t _make up_ problems,” she objects, shifting to wind her arms around Catra’s waist, tugging her until they’re chest-to-chest and she can frown down at her properly. (It’s definitely a frown, not a pout. Adora’s checked in the mirror before to make sure.) Catra raises an eyebrow, slides her hand on Adora’s chin along her jaw and below her ear, and Adora’s heart starts to pound. She’s obvious, she knows; she doesn’t try to hide it, and Catra’s lips pull into that fang-tipped smirk as her thumb strokes across Adora’s cheek.

“I _don’t_.” Adora’s insistence only makes Catra’s fingers curl, the tips of her claws pressing into Adora’s nape as she tugs her down and rises on her feet in one move, and Adora’s head tilts automatically in anticipation, her eyelids flutter closed, and she feels warm and tingly already and—

\--Catra’s lips don’t make it to hers? Instead she squints her eyes open, and sees the mischievous glint in Catra’s, and Adora’s lip juts in what is definitely a pout now.

“Catra,” she whines, tightening her arms around her as if they could possibly get any closer. She can feel the quiet purr rumbling in her chest, the sound of it lost in the constant hum and whir of Darla’s machinery, and Adora lowers her face to rub it into Catra’s neck just to hear her laugh. “Don’t do that.”

She gets what she wants, the shake of Catra’s chest and squeak of her laugh, and Adora presses her lips to the side of her neck in happiness. She likes the tickle of the short fur against her face, and she huffs in faux-annoyance as she kisses up, Catra’s head tilting willingly for her, until she can press her mouth firmly against the dip below her jaw. Catra’s laugh turns breathy, catches a little – and somewhere around here is where one of those books indicated that marking scent comes from. Adora presses her face in, nuzzles right into Catra’s fur, and breathes deep to see if she can smell it.

She can’t.

(Stupid weak nose.)

(--That’s not a made-up problem, that’s a _real_ and _established_ one.)

“You know you can just kiss me.” She can feel the vibration of every word through Catra’s throat, and the steady ones of her purr, and Adora hums as Catra’s hands knead against her head and back like a massage. Presses her lips against her fur again, making a loud smacking noise as she does, and Catra laughs again before she tugs at her hair; pulling Adora back, and pretending that the dopey grin on Adora’s face isn’t making her want to smile. “On the _lips_ , dummy. You don’t have to wait for me to do it.”

Right. RIGHT. Lips -- _different_ lips. That’s what Adora had wanted to bring up, and her spine goes straight again as she remembers. She ignores Catra’s muttered ‘ _oh great, here we go_ ’, and resets her feet into a parade rest out of nervous habit. Catra does not look pleased.

“Catra,” she begins, and doesn’t let Catra’s dry ’ _uh-huh_ ’ deter her. “I’ve been doing a lot of research lately, and I—”

“Is this about the porn?” Catra interjects, moving both arms around Adora’s shoulders to lace her fingers behind her neck, pulling her weight against them in a bid to draw Adora closer again. “Because you have pretty bad taste.”

“What? No, I—” The surprise of the question grabs her first, and then indignation as the follow up sinks in. “I _do not have bad taste!_ ”

“Sure you don’t.” That encouraging tone of Catra’s is anything but, and Adora _knows her_ ; knows from the pull at the corner of her lips that she’s about to make fun of her, knows from the lean of her shoulder into Adora’s that she’s about to recite a mocking quote. So Adora proves that she is a problem-solver, not a problem-maker, and ducks her head down to kiss her before she can. It’s Catra’s smile that she lands on at first, her lips encountering only teeth, before Catra laughs at her and helps correct the issue. Which is good of her, considering it’s _her_ mouth.

“Anyway,” Adora huffs a few minutes later, significantly redder in the face and with the sting of scratches on the back of her neck. Catra seems more content to listen now, her eyes half-lidded and her hips pressed against Adora’s in interest, and Adora tries not to be distracted by how Catra is just watching her lips move as she talks, or how Catra’s lower lip has disappeared to be scraped against by her teeth. Swallows hard anyway, shifts her stance to try to relieve some of the sensitivity between her legs, only for Catra’s tail to take the invitation to curl high up on her thigh to try to distract her. “I was _researching_ , and I found something I’d like to try. On you, if you want to.”

Adora would cross her toes if she were that flexible, since her hands are on Catra’s hip and between her shoulder blades, and strokes her thumbs invitingly along the curves of each. She tries to look encouraging, ends up looking hopeful instead, and Catra finally looks up from her lips to squint at her.

“Haven’t you been trying those things this entire time?” she asks, skeptical. Adora shouldn’t be surprised, because she hasn’t exactly been – subtle, and some of the things she’s tried she definitely would have never thought of on her own. Catra probably realized something was up the moment Adora did something that Catra hadn’t explicitly instructed her to, and then gone pawing through her journal to find out what. _Clearly_ hadn’t objected to it, given how she went ahead and just let Adora put so much effort into sneaking around--

\--Oh. She’s frowning again. She can tell because Catra’s smirk is back.

“So what is it?” She asks in a voice as deep as her richest purr, stroking the pads of her fingers down the side of Adora’s neck to watch the bob of her throat as she swallows once more. Catra leans forward, and Adora gasps as her sharp teeth press against her skin, her hands fisting against her.

\---

Later, when she actually gets around to showing Catra the tool and the description in the book, she just frowns.

“Not yet,” she tells Adora. “That’s too…”

_Pathetic_ is what she wants to say. _Weak_ is the alternative her brain supplies.

_Dangerous_.

“…I’ll tell you when we can try it,” is what she comes out with. Adora smiles at her, soft and loving, and Catra claims her mouth with her own again to invite her for another round. Adora’s enough for her as she is. Catra doesn’t need anything else.

\---

It is actual years later when Catra brings it up again. Adora had not at any point forgotten about it. Even after she’d learned all she could from the books, she kept returning to that one; the one that had described, in such beautiful detail, the feeling of being able to let go and _trust_.

(They do address the mewling situation in the meantime. Catra has no respect for privacy whatsoever, insisting that Adora should use a better lock if she doesn’t want people going through her stuff, and Adora comes into their room a short time after leaving Purrsia to find Catra flipping through her journal on their bed.

“You’re really obsessed with this mewling thing, aren’t you.” Catra sounds so idle when she says it, the tips of her claws pinching the page, but the flick of her ear gives her away. Adora sits next to her on the bed, the hard mattress barely yielding under her weight, and fidgets with the edges of her jacket. Catra looks at her askance, her tail flicking at the tip in warning. Adora bites her lip, considers whether this is something she actually needs to talk about, and decides: yes. It really is.

“I want to make you feel good,” Adora explains, apology in her voice as she turns to grasp Catra’s hand earnestly with her own. She hopes Catra can read the sincerity in her eyes, hopes Catra knows she hasn’t been letting her down on _purpose_. But judging by the frown on Catra’s face, and the shift of her body as she prepares to sit up, Adora has failed in that regard. “And I’m trying!” she assures quickly, snatching the journal from Catra’s hands and flipping through to one of the newest pages, where she’s developed a new plan of attack – a new flowchart of maneuvers that Catra enjoys – and thrusts it into her face. “See, I’ve got it all here. First we’ll start with the—”

_Kissing_ , is what she was going to say. Because Catra sometimes melts into Adora’s arms after a few moments, and Adora likes being her support as a warm purr rumbles through her chest and throat and into Adora’s mouth and against her tongue, and Adora especially likes it when sometimes – rarely, but becoming more frequent - Catra tilts her head and lets Adora stroke along the soft fuzz of her ears and gently scratch her nails at the curve of her jaw. Likes it _way_ more after reading about it in all of the more romantic novels, the ones that describe how soft and precious and loved the characters are feeling when they’re doing just what Catra does. It’s so easy to believe that’s how Catra’s feeling, too; especially when Adora pulls away breathless to watch Catra breathing through darkened lips, her eyelashes fluttering as she squints her eyes open just enough to look at her.

“—Are you strategizing _sex_?” Catra interrupts, snatching the journal back. Adora watches her eyes flicking rapidly down across the flowchart. And then Catra turns back a few pages, eyes widening as she goes back and back and back and back through _all_ of the failed ones before it, and Adora feels the heat rising in her face.

“You don’t have to go that far,” she protests, grabbing for the book. Catra rolls away from her, onto her back; her knees coming up to her chest comfortably while her tail swishes across the bed in amusement.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Catra comments, her fangs slipping through the smile on her lips. “It figures _you_ can’t just let go and enjoy it.” Adora’s cheeks puff in indignation, ready to defend herself – and Catra continues, shoulders shimmying in glee as she notes the rankings Adora’s given each move. “Are you scoring yourself?” Catra is far too delighted by the evidence. “ _Wow_ , Adora. You need to give yourself way more credit. Some of these should be ranked _way_ higher. I can’t believe you crossed off wall sex.”

And that’s just. That’s unfair. She’d tried, okay, and Catra’s fur had bristled so high and she’d swiped at Adora’s face so quickly Adora had only seen a blur as she’d instinctively dodged. She has to defend herself: “You almost took my eye out!”  
  


“Uh, _yeah_?” Catra turns her head to look at her. Raises an eyebrow, like this is the most obvious thing in the world. “You _surprised_ me.”

“The book said it would be scintillating!”

“You don’t even know what that word means!”

Adora just – huffs a loud puff of angry air, and snatches her journal back again, snapping it closed to hug against her chest. She ducks her chin to cover it protectively, glowering at Catra’s eyeroll.

“Come off it, Adora.” She complains, rolling back onto her knees. Catra’s the one who reaches for her this time, laying a clawed hand on each of her shoulders. Adora’s determined to not relax into her, and stubbornly squares up more. Catra just sighs, shuffles closer; and then presses each of her palms down, kneading rhythmically into her, forcing her shoulders down. “I don’t get why you think you need a plan for sex.” Catra’s tail swishes, then curls around her on the bed. It’s the only indication that she’s feeling self-conscious, because the expression on her face is all closed off and cautious. “Didn’t you like how we were doing it before?”

Before this trip. When they’d fumbled around each-other’s bodies, laughing and gasping and exploring together.

“No,” Adora says honestly. “I loved it.”

Tension bleeds from Catra in relief, and Adora feels bad for making her worry.

“So what’s the problem then?” Catra asks. The concern that softens her eyes warms Adora through, and she’s the one who sighs this time; finally letting her shoulders drop under Catra’s massage.

“Me,” she admits, her lips turning down. “I just – I can’t figure out what I need to do.” Catra opens her mouth to correct her, based on her frown, and Adora shakes her head quickly. “No, I mean - _clearly_ I know what to do--”

She chews on her lip for a moment. She’d wanted to figure this out on her own, and work out the solution. It was her problem, so she should be the one to fix it, right?

No. Not anymore. She’d promised to stop doing that.

“…In all of these books, they’re always mewling when it’s going right.” If Adora had ears like Catra’s, she’s sure they’d be turned down in disappointment at herself. As it is, her own heat red. “And I haven’t been able to—”

“Let me get this straight,” Catra interrupts again. She’s good at doing that. “This little crisis of yours is because, what. I won’t make a dumb noise for you?”

“It’s not a dumb noise!” Adora protests, unfolding her arm to open her journal to the running tally. Catra’s hand smacks down on it immediately, knocking it forcefully from Adora’s hands, and she lets loose a startled yell in protest. If she had fur, it would be _bristling_.

“Adora, look at me.” Catra orders, and Adora’s heated glare snaps to her. Catra looks serious, which tempers her… well, temper somewhat; but Adora’s still angry. Until Catra’s tail twitches uncomfortably, and her lips pull in a grimace, and Adora straightens somberly. She’s still glaring, though.

“I can’t do it,” her girlfriend admits. And then scowls, her tail lashing. “It’s too…” Catra shakes her head, her growing hair fluttering around her face, and Adora raises a hand to brush it back for her. Her thanks is in Catra’s wry smile, and Adora nods smartly before dropping her hand back down to pay attention properly. “It’s dumb stuff, Adora. I don’t need it.”

“But the books said—”

“-- _Forget the books, Adora!_ ” They’re both exasperated now, both stubbornly glowering until Catra looks away, baring her teeth at the wall.

“Do you even know why they do it?” She asks, heated. “They learn it when they’re _kids_. That’s how they ask for stuff.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

Understanding dawns clearly on Adora’s face. Catra huffs when she looks back and sees it, her tail smacking Adora’s side with annoyance.

“I told you,” she insists. “I don’t need it. I never did. I figured out something better on my own.”

That’s news to Adora, and catches her attention instantly. Catra notices – of course she does – and both her eyebrows raise before she puffs a breath of disbelieving laughter.

“You don’t know?” Adora hates it when she’s missed something that Catra lays out as being obvious, but racking through her memories she can’t think of _anything_ Catra might have used as a replacement for the mewls. She purrs, she growls, she yelps, she screeches. Sometimes she makes a cute little half-purr half-trill when Adora’s been petting her for so long that she’s become a warm puddle. In bed she whimpers, and moans, and keens and groans. None of those seem like adequate replacements.

She knows she’s in for it when a smirk twitches and curls on Catra’s lips, and when she leans forward at her waist, providing Adora with a fantastic view of her cleavage down the window of her top. Her heart’s already pounding faster in expectation, as Catra places her forearms on Adora’s shoulders and rests her weight on them, her tail twining through the air as she breathes hot against Adora’s ear.

“ _Adora_ ,” she whines, so soft and sad that Adora jerks with the instinctual need to check over her. Catra’s weight keeps her in place, and the stroke of her tongue along the shell of Adora’s ear makes her groan, which Adora is certain is **not** the correct response for when Catra is sounding like that.

Catra fixes it for her, voice dropping low and confident as she turns her head to kiss the lobe of Adora’s ear. “A-dor-a,” she drawls; each syllable dragging like a toy, and Adora feels familiar heat stir low in her stomach. That’s the – that’s the _goading_ voice, that’s the voice Catra uses whenever she wants Adora to compete in something with her, because she knows Adora can’t help but react to her.

Adora’s starting to realize where this is going, when Catra kisses down from her ear; along her jaw, across her chin, making a brief stop to nip at her lips with mischief in her eyes before continuing along. Adora, ever compliant in the face of Catra’s affection, turns her head for her; making the journey to her other ear easier. Her breathing’s coming faster, she’s – pretty sure, now, she knows which one is next.

She’s not wrong.

Catra sets it up first, pressing her cheek against Adora’s temple. Pants a false breath into her hair. Adora’s ashamed to admit it, but it _works_ on her, and her hands rise to hold Catra’s hips. She can feel Catra’s smirk, and Adora knows that at least a part of it is real when she presses her thumbs into the dips and strokes there, for Catra to gasp “—A _dora_ ” and cant into her touch.

“I get it,” Adora says smugly, running her hands lower. Catra’s thighs tremble, spreading easily for her, and Adora’s gratified when Catra nips at the edge of her ear, her purr rumbling right into her.

She makes Catra mewl a lot immediately after.)

So, yeah. Maybe Adora’s a little insecure and anxious sometimes, and maybe she makes up some problems to be worried about. But she’s gotten better at it, over the years, and Catra had eventually had a discussion with her about not trusting everything some idiot wrote down into a book.

It had come after she’d expressed surprise at how badly one of the techniques in one of the books had failed. Catra had frowned, and squinted at her, and had slowly asked if Adora thought everything in her books was based on reality.

In Adora’s defense, literally nobody had ever told her otherwise. 

Anyway, the tool. The one she’d packed in her bag on every leg of their travels, the one that Catra teased her for carrying around all the time. But Adora had seen Catra investigating it every so often; picking it up and weighing it in her hands, tracing the curves and ridges of it, her tail always in a curious lift. She was definitely interested in it, but something was just… holding her back.

(Well. Not just ‘something’. Adora had figured that out eventually, too. It didn’t matter how safe Catra felt with her, personally. The fact that they were constantly drifting around from one uncertainty to another kept the need to be alert alive. She’d felt stupid when she’d realized, for ever having even suggested it. But Catra had glanced at the tool as she’d pushed Adora into bed that night, and had had a considering look in her eye before she dismissed it and straddled her, and Adora thought she’d probably done the right thing after all.)

It’d been years since she first brought it up, but it still features prominently in Adora’s thoughts. Which is why when Catra looks up at her from her lap with eyes so lidded they may well be closed, and traces the sharp point of a claw around Adora’s kiss-swollen lips, it’s the first thing that comes to mind when Catra murmurs, low and lazy: “Hey, Adora.” Adora’s lips part as she hums, sucking Catra’s finger in to flick her tongue against its pad, warmed by the deeper purr she receives in response. “Let’s try that thing out.”

Adora’s breath stills, her eyes widen. And she pulls back from Catra’s finger, which immediately lands to trace her jaw instead, and swallows.

“—You sure?” She asks, her hands stilling on Catra’s ears. She gets kind of cutely disoriented when Adora’s been petting them for too long, and Adora drops her hands to instead stroke through the fur on her arms, curling her nails to scrape lightly against her skin to wake her up. Catra’s ears flick, twitch; flick again, as her lashes flutter and she turns her head to nuzzle into Adora’s leg.

“Yeah,” she breathes; and closes her teeth around Adora’s thigh, to feel her twitch and gasp. Then licks the skin there, to taste the remains of sweat and come, and to hear Adora’s quiet sigh of a moan.

Adora’s soft laugh isn’t on Catra’s schedule, but she kisses her bite anyway for it.

“Next time, okay?” She can hear the warm smile in Adora’s voice, and Catra shimmies onto her stomach, exposing her back. Adora takes the hint with another sweet giggle, and Catra melts further under the fingers that brush through her fur with expertise, smoothing through the mussed mess. Her own hands and feet stretch, and Adora’s touch disappears from her for a moment; only to place soft pillows beneath each of her claws. Catra’s purr is deep and appreciative when she kneads into them, sharp nails catching and pulling satisfyingly at threads, and Adora’s hum is just as loving when she returns to her ministrations.

\---

Surprisingly, Catra’s still up for it the next day.

“You’re so full of yourself,” she scoffs as she pulls her hair back, deftly stealing Adora’s elastic band to tie it. “ _As if_ you’re good enough to make me forget what I’m saying.”

Adora strokes her fingers down her bare spine, and Catra shudders under her touch.

“—Shut up,” she snaps, ears turning down as a flush burns through the fine fur on her cheeks. And then attacks the grin on Adora’s lips, trying to kiss and nip the smug look off her face – which just. Doesn’t work at all.

\---

It’s kind of like their first few times all over again, Adora thinks giddily later that night. She’s nervous but in the good way, and when she catches Catra looking at her from the corner of her eye she giggles – and Catra turns her head to hide her grin, but doesn’t disguise the anticipatory lash of her tail.

“So this is all on you, right?” Catra teases, hopping onto their bed and flopping backwards; pressing her heels into the edge of their mattress to wriggle, stretching into every corner. “I just have to lay here and take it.” She turns her head up to look at the tool, sitting innocently at their bedside, and her tail swishes across the bedspread. “I figure I’ll have a back-up in case it’s not everything you imagined it to be. Do you want the—” Adora watches as Catra’s claws all curl into the sheets, and she lifts her chest and hips in an undulating roll, tilting her head back to the pillows as she cries out.

And then recovers swiftly, ears eagerly pricked as she grins at Adora, who – yeah, okay. Is a little flushed, eyes a little darker, definitely a lot more aroused from the display.

“Or would you prefer—” Catra cuts herself off with a gasp, tensing with her core for a second before releasing a shuddering and _fake_ moan, grinding her hips down into the bed wantonly. Adora doesn’t want to pick a fake act, but if she _had to_ \--

“You’re not going to need that,” she says confidently, tossing the last of her clothes to the washbasket. Catra, of course, has left hers in a heap on the floor. Adora just rolls her eyes as she kicks it to the side, pointedly in the path of Catra’s favourite lounging spot. And then stands there, head tilted and eyes lidded with a smirk, hand on her hip to flex her bicep in a _little_ bit of a pose -- because she knows Catra likes looking at her. As much as she likes looking at Catra. And sure enough, they take that moment to rake their eyes over each-other’s bodies, the heat of Catra’s gaze and coy sway of her tail thrilling her. (That had been one she’d needed the books to figure out. Not that it was a new one, exactly? But it had only appeared after Adora had left the Horde. Showed up whenever Catra was messing with her, flirting to get into her head.

‘ _Amorous invitation_ ’ is how one of the books had described it. But Catra lifts her chin, and drifts a hand down across the soft fur covering her hard stomach, and Adora thinks that’s a bit of a simplistic way of putting it.)

“You like looking at me that much?” She teases, like the muscles of her thighs don’t clench when Catra’s hand dips lower, her clawed fingers careful as she presses on the folds of skin that Adora knows are hidden beneath the orange-brown tufts. “And you say _I’m_ easy.”

Catra just laughs, the squeak of her inhale contrasting with the deepened timbre of her voice, and Adora sees her fingers disappear into the depths of her fur before Catra pulls her palm up over herself; the pads of her fingers glistening as she flashes a fanged grin Adora’s way.

“You stink,” she says simply; and raises her fingers to her mouth, dragging her tongue across them, swirling around their tips before taking them between her lips and sucking. Adora knows what that feels like. Knows what it tastes like, too. Her heart pounds in both her chest and her stomach, heat pooling wet between her legs. Catra just grins wider, dragging her fingers out to wipe them off across a nipple; purring deliberately low as she does. “You know, I don’t think I even need you for this. These things are made to be used on their own, right?”

She reaches out, swiping the tool easily from the bedside. Adora shouldn’t be surprised, given who Catra is as a person, that she then proceeds to lick it; flicking her tongue across the soft curved tip, eyes drifting down between Adora’s hips as she presses her lips to it in a kiss and then breathes a quiet moan against it.

Adora is a little ashamed that she matches it with one of her own, the muscles around her clit flexing eagerly. Catra’s eyes are glittering smugly when she pulls the tool away from her mouth, and she takes a deliberately slow, open-mouthed breath to taste the air; tongue running over the sharp jut of her fangs before she grins, again.

“You wanna watch?” She invites, because that is something that Adora had admitted, in the end. The whole tying up thing had been addressed too, and at the same time Catra had realized how eager to follow her orders Adora was, and that whole sexual experience had just been – wow. Just _wow_. It works out well for them, because Catra loves to mess with Adora and drive her insane; and it’s her fault, probably, that Adora’s like this to begin with.

So Adora’s body says _yes_ , she’d love for Catra to wind the rope around her arms and chest to bind her, would love to feel the coarse fibers rubbing into her skin as she kneels there and watches Catra screw herself into their mattress, close enough to almost taste her on every breath but too far to touch, becoming so wet and desperate she grinds herself against the floor for relief—

\--But Adora shakes her head stubbornly, screwing her determination in place and striding quickly to their bed, climbing up to kneel firmly between Catra’s legs.

“This was my idea,” she insists, plucking the tool deftly from Catra’s hand. “I’m doing it.”

“Suit yourself.” Catra shrugs, shimmying her shoulders to wriggle down further beneath her. Enough that her eyes can alight on Adora’s chest, sparking again with amusement when she raises both hands to trail the prickling tips of her index fingers around each erect nipple. She lifts herself into a sit with only a tensing of her core and press of her heels, licking a path between the curves of her breasts, and Adora’s soft moan comes easily as her free hand slips into the fluffy locks of Catra’s hair.

“Thought about it though, didn’t you.” She murmurs, scraping her teeth against Adora’s skin, relishing in her gasp when she flicks the sides of her nails across her nipples. Adora’s hips tilt toward her, and she shivers when Catra breathes deep against her skin, and again when the deep reverberations of her purr tingle against her.

“Yeah,” Adora breathes, sliding her fingers through Catra’s hair to find and massage at the base of her ear. Catra’s lips part on her skin with a sigh of appreciation, and Adora’s rewarded with the nip of teeth and brush of lips along her chest until Catra’s mouth replaces her finger, and she jerks into her with an unrestrained whimper as her rough tongue drags over her hardened nipple. Catra’s free hand falls easily between her legs, fingers curled to tuck her claws towards her palm as she presses her knuckles into her pubic hair. Adora shifts to allow her through, humming low with a short gasp as Catra slips easily against her slickened folds, the pressure of her knuckles glancing too quickly off her clit.

“Don’t tease,” she complains, tugging lightly on Catra’s hair. She grazes her teeth over Adora’s nipple one more time before pulling away, licking her lips.

“I’m not,” she protests hoarsely. Adora tickles her finger down against the pink fuzz inside her ear, and Catra shivers into her, her knuckles fluttering against her and sliding back up to massage her clit as she palms at Adora’s breast. “You’re so _wet_ , I slipped.”

A reasonable explanation, probably. It sounds likely enough, given that Adora’s hips are moving without her; pressing into the rhythmic push of Catra’s fingers. That’s surely making it harder for Catra to stay on target. She draws another sharp breath when Catra’s mouth returns to her; the tips of her claws trailing prickling lines from her breast to her collar, leaving Adora’s skin buzzing with excitement. And when Catra’s fingers twine in her hair, when her tongue drags up the side of Adora’s throat, the anticipation of what comes next has her thighs and stomach clenching.

Catra must feel it, either the tensing of her muscles or the throbbing between her legs. Or maybe she smells it, or maybe she hears it. Maybe she’s got some other weird, heightened sense that Adora doesn’t know about yet but will surely be jealous of when she discovers it.

Whatever it is, it’s funny to Catra. Her laugh is breathy against Adora’s neck, and it’s not what Adora was expecting but she moans anyway – though, it’s more than half-deprecating. She doesn’t get to admonish her, but Adora can _feel_ Catra’s smirk right before she opens her mouth against her; and Adora gets half a stuttering breath in before Catra’s fingers _pull_ on her hair and her teeth close down, Adora’s body canting into her sharply as she cries out, adrenaline surging and burning and calling every nerve in her body into action.

That’s how Catra ends up shoved backwards onto the bed, Adora’s hips pressing down hard on hers, keeping her pinned. Her chest is heaving, rising and falling rapidly with every breath; and Catra’s eyes are alight with victory, though her pupils are dilated just as much – if not _more_ – than Adora’s own. And Adora almost forgets their plan entirely when she rolls her hips down and feels the lift of Catra’s into her, readily distracted by the softness of Catra’s fur tickling against her nose when she leans down to bite at _her_ neck in return.

The jolt and jerk of Catra’s body underneath her has never ceased to outweigh the cons of scraping hair out of her mouth after, and there is _nothing_ in the _universe_ that could ever convince Adora to relinquish the burning fire that overtakes her when she _feels_ Catra’s moan pulling up through her throat; her chin lifting up and turning; her back arching her chest desperately into Adora’s. Adora’s not sure, but she hopes she’s right on the scenting mark. Hopes she’s buried right in it, hopes that when she releases Catra’s skin from beneath her teeth and presses a self-righteous kiss to it, that it covers her lips and chin and nose, so that anybody who _can_ know _does_ know how thoroughly Catra’s she is.

(--And maybe the part of her that’s possessive, the part of her that’s jealous, wishes she could mark Catra too. So that everyone who could know would know that she’s _Adora’s_. She’s come to terms with the fact that she _can’t_ , that she’ll never have the satisfaction of would-be pursuers being turned away by how definitively her scent mixes with hers; that she’ll never be able to give Catra the satisfaction and security of being blanketed by her wherever she goes -- but it’s a sore point. And no, she’ll never bring it up. Why would she? That’s not a problem that she, or Catra, or anybody can solve.)

“Adora,” Catra gasps; and there’s a tinge of a plea to the vowels of her name, one that shifts Adora lower, until the curve of her abdomen is pressed flush against the soft tuft of pubic fur that’s slick from – one of them, and it doesn’t really matter who. Catra’s hips move up into her with a thankful groan, though her thighs are still pinned; still pressed together beneath Adora’s weight. She’s gotten off like this before, an apparent master of sneaking orgasms, and it’s usually fine. It’s usually _fun_ , to watch Catra shiver and squirm and bite back her moans, and Adora’s so taken by the feeling of Catra’s slick arousal sliding against her stomach that she almost lets her have it.

But letting Catra come now, giving her that release – that’ll take the edge off her arousal. What if it ruins the whole point of the tool?

So Adora lowers her mouth to the underside of Catra’s breast, and closes her teeth there, too; laving her tongue across the soft fur, so that when she pulls away – only after moaning quietly around her, Catra’s groan and the stutter of her hips getting the better of her – there’s a patch there that’s damp and flattened and, unfortunately for Catra, just that bit too close to her nipple for the prickle of her slowly drying fur to be ignored.

When Adora sits back up, Catra’s finally looking an acceptable level of debauched. Pupils blown wide, fur mussed, her wild hair having seemingly fluffed. The heavy breaths coming through her parted lips; her hips twitching, still, grinding her into her own tightly-clenched thighs.

She’s not so far gone that she doesn’t moan in annoyance, lifting her head the tiniest fraction just so she can thump it back against the pillow it was only half-on to begin with. Maybe Adora takes that with a little bit of pride, maybe she shoots a smug smirk down at her.

Catra’s tail gives a whole-length flick, thudding against the mattress, and mostly Adora tries not to laugh.

“Come on, Catra,” she cajoles. The tool is still in her hand, the curves warmed by the clench of her fist around it, and Catra’s entire thigh twitches when Adora touches the tip to it. A shiver crosses her shoulders when Adora drags it up, and Adora watches with no small amount of fascination the way that Catra turns her hips minutely towards it, seeking out the pressure. And when Adora crosses the front of her leg with it, bringing it to the apex of Catra’s thighs, they tremble as Catra refuses to let them part.

It only takes a little convincing, a brush of the tool down the center of her pubic fur, for Catra to overcome the imaginary slight of an orgasm withheld.

“ _Fine_.” She grumbles, but despite the displeased curl of her lip, Catra huffs. And to Adora’s surprise, she pushes up on one elbow; crosses one leg over the other; and rolls herself over.

“Uh.” Adora says, just as Catra’s drawing her knees up under herself, raising her hips into the air and bearing her weight on her elbows. Not that it’s an unfamiliar position, but she can usually _tell_ when Catra’s in that kind of mood. (The one where she wants Adora to stroke along the length of her back and press her fingers against the base of her tail; when she needs Adora to grip at the scruff of her neck, her calloused hand asserting a claim that’s more real than the scar left there, and leave soft kisses along her shoulders as she lets Catra guide herself to her own end on her fingers.)

Catra is definitely not in that mood. For one thing, the curve of her tail right before it sweeps deliberately and bodily across Adora’s face is amused. The arch of Catra’s back is smug as she languidly stretches, and she looks like _she’s_ the one who’s gotten to prove something when she looks over her shoulder with a smirk pulling at her lips.

“Thought you’d wanna see everything,” she goads. Which is – stupid, because what is there to goad? Even stupider is that Adora’s rising to it, indignant and competitive about something that hasn’t even been defined. The lift of Catra’s tail is meant to distract her, she knows; and she’s beginning to suspect that maybe Catra’s closed-leg grinding was deliberate, because the rubbing of her thighs has smeared the wetness of her arousal between them, leaving Adora with a clear eyeful that Catra _knows_ is going to work her up more than anything else could.

(Not that Adora doesn’t like it when Catra touches her. But they’ve tried, a few times, getting her off first. It doesn’t happen. She doesn’t feel the singing of her nerves until Catra’s gasping and straining for her; she doesn’t feel the rush of demand in her core until Catra’s pressing against her and crying her name. Until then, whatever Catra does to her – whatever she does to herself – is nice... but it’s not _enough_.)

Catra can’t expect what Adora does, because Adora does it without thinking; bracing her hands on the mattress to lean forward, and press her lips to the cooling arousal on the inside of Catra’s thigh. She can picture the widening of her eyes that accompanies Catra’s surprised gasp, her body jerking forward; and Adora follows her, dragging her tongue slowly up, and up; until the puff of her breath lands directly against Catra’s exposed center, and she’s tasting the musk that’s heavy in the heated air.

It isn’t what Adora had planned, but she can improvise. She can press the flat of her tongue to Catra’s wet heat, and drag the tip of it around the circle of muscle when Catra shoves her hips back, pressing herself against Adora’s face. She can slide her hands around Catra’s thighs, shifting herself into place to part them further.

What she _can’t_ do, Adora realizes quickly, is reach everything she needs.

But she can fix that, too. (See? She’s such a problem solver.) Because Catra is light, and Adora is strong, and it’s honestly not that difficult for her to press Catra forward to collapse her weight into the pillows with a noise of protest, and then lift her by her thighs and place them over Adora’s shoulders. And then she can stretch her tongue, and tighten her grip on Catra’s thighs when she jerks with a muffled cry.

It’s actually probably better than what Adora had planned. Catra starts to unravel quickly, her hips bucking to grind herself into Adora’s face, but she doesn’t have the _leverage_ she needs to do it. She can’t direct Adora’s head with rough tugs at her hair, she can’t sit above her and let gravity help her out. She has no choice but to let Adora take her time. Adora can circle the point of her tongue around Catra’s swollen clit, can press it against the slickness of her core; can go slow, and steady, and even.

All the things that drive Catra up the wall.

“A _dora_ ,” Catra complains; her hips tilting, trying to chase the gentle pressure of Adora’s tongue. Adora hums in acknowledgement, shifts her own legs to let her thighs part; and Catra groans, either because the strength of Adora’s arousal hits her nose or because Adora’s tongue pushes into her. Adora lets her get one desperate grind in before withdrawing; tasting and smelling Catra in every labored breath, and feeling inexplicably _alive_ when even a wide-mouthed draw of air doesn’t do anything to dissipate it.

“Ready for it?” she asks, and Adora is not ashamed that her voice has gone low and hoarse. Catra’s answer is more in the roll of her hips than her quiet panting, and in the fall of her tail onto Adora’s head; brushing without finesse down the side, leaving Adora’s skin prickling the wake of its soft fur as it glides down her arm.

It’s a yes, though Catra’s closed-mouth moan of annoyance when Adora shifts her legs back down says otherwise. There’s a tremor running up from her knees when Adora guides them back to the mattress, and evidently she places them too close together; because Catra’s quick to part them, though she makes no effort to extricate herself from where her face and shoulders have landed in the pillows.

Adora’s worried for a moment. She might have gone a little too slow with the teasing, or maybe she should’ve rethought not letting her come the first time.

_Or_ , she realizes as she sees the relaxed set of Catra’s shoulders, and takes in the languid sweep of her tail, _she’s just being lazy_.

Well. Catra _did_ say it was all up to Adora.

She’s feeling more confident when she picks up the tool again, and the excitement’s starting to bubble. She probably _shouldn’t_ be looking forward to this so much (--Catra’s right, what if does nothing for her?), but after so long they’re finally _doing it_.

Catra gasps sharply when the soft tip of the tool presses against her, and Adora freezes. But Catra’s hips twitch, rocking her further onto it; and she breathes a quiet, shivering moan into the pillows beneath her. That’s all the assurance Adora needs, her eyes bright as she pushes it forward just a little more; watching as it disappears into Catra, bit by bit, guided by her own hand.

“How is it?” she breathes, but the tremble in Catra’s thighs is her only answer. “Catra?”

Catra makes a low noise, deep in her throat, and it shoots straight between Adora’s thighs. It’s not the high-pitched whine she’s read about, but when she tilts the angle of the tool and Catra shoves roughly back against it, Adora decides that maybe the books don’t entirely matter right now.

What matters more is reaching forward with her free hand, to slide her fingers into Catra’s hair and pull her face free with a firm tug. What’s more important is hearing Catra’s guttural moan, feeling the push of her against the tool, of having the freedom to provide her with that pressure with the heel of her hand while Adora’s fingers stretch towards her clit. It’s about hearing Catra’s cry of her name when Adora lowers her mouth to bite at the curve of her cheek, and her desperate rutting against the tool inside her. Adora’s own breaths are growing ragged, Catra’s name an awed murmur on her lips as she shifts closer; until Adora’s pressed against Catra’s straining thigh, each roll of Catra’s hips grinding into her.

Adora doesn’t know what it is that possesses her to put her leg between Catra’s. Some part of her brain clearly thinks her hand is better off freed, and it’s right. With her thigh holding the tool in place, Adora can lean closer than ever before into Catra. She can rock her own hips into Catra’s leg for relief against the throbbing of her arousal, and if she leans her weight onto her knee – then every time she grinds against Catra, she moves the tool into her too. And that alone is worth it. It’s worth it for the ragged, choked gasp of her name; the one that turns into a keen when Adora leans forward and gropes for Catra’s breast, her palm and then her fingers easily finding her hard, stiffened nipple. It’s worth it for Adora’s other hand to be able to leave Catra’s hair, to reach that bit further and stroke between her ears; and Catra pleads her name, her tail looping desperately around that reaching arm as her shoulders arch down, pushing her head into Adora’s hand and grinding her hips down onto Adora’s thigh. 

It’s one of the most incredible things Adora’s ever experienced.

(And she can turn into a legendary magic warrior.)

“Adora,” Catra begs – it’s different to a plea, it’s different to a whine, and a hot flush runs all the way through Adora, who really at some point should unpack what that means.

But now’s not that time for that. Now’s the time to take a shuddering breath, to lift her knee towards Catra’s stomach, to give her the friction that she needs. Despite the tool, she’s slick all over; each frenzied cant of her hips smearing across Adora’s thigh, and Catra’s going to be _so annoyed_ later because Adora’s making much the same mess on _her_ leg, and—

\--Catra doesn’t much care about it in the moment. She doesn’t care about much of anything, and especially not about the tearing of the mattress that Adora can hear as her claws presumably grip into it. She definitely doesn’t care about her arms failing her as her back dips; arching her hips up, curving her snugly and directly into Adora, whose hips continue to move even as Catra’s judder unevenly.

“Catra,” she tries; but Adora’s voice comes out shaky and ragged, and a low whine begins in her throat when Catra gasps and cries out but doesn’t give her what she doesn’t know she _needs_. And so she tries again, her fingers scratching at Catra’s hair; her hand smoothing down from the curve of her breast to the flat of her stomach and further, becoming engulfed in the dampened-down mess of her fur. “ _Catra_ \--”

And, finally, she gets it: the tightly-strung return of her name, the “-- _Adora_ ” that’s so filled with need, the one that strikes right to her heart and demands she provide. The one that lets her angle her knee back into the mattress, so her fingers can finish the job. The one that gives her permission to feel the swell of Catra’s clit and the slickness that’s coated it, which, it turns out: is the last push that Catra needs, too.

It’s embarrassing, because after all of that anticipation – Adora doesn’t actually know if Catra’s climax took her any differently than it normally does. She has a vague recollection of them each pressing into the other, of rolling her hips up one final time before her muscles locked and heat spilled throughout her, and after that…

…it’s a success, Adora thinks dimly. It takes a while for the thought to make it to her, and by that time she’s already guided Catra to a more comfortable position; stroking along her shoulders with murmurs of her name to rouse her from her would-be catatonic state.

It’s not quite the success the books promised. Catra’s not boneless and wordless, grumbling with effort as she lets Adora tug the blanket out from under her. Maybe Adora should have pre-empted that, maybe she should have kept the blanket folded and off the bed until they were done. But maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway – none of the books ever really specified the configuration of their linen. And Catra’s legs shift, rubbing together underneath the blanket; her shoulders rolling back in a relaxed and satisfied stretch, and. Well. If _she’s_ not complaining, then it must have worked well enough.

Adora’s body is moving so slowly, it feels like it takes forever until she’s laying down next to her. As soon as she does, as soon as her hand brushes the strands of messy hair away from Catra’s face, the purr starts. The one Adora wishes she could imitate; the one that comes so deeply from Catra’s chest, it’s often poetically described as being born from the wellspring of love in one’s heart.

She can’t do it, so instead she wraps her arms around Catra and pulls her close, feeling hers rumble through her chest. She can’t even pretend it’s hers, but Adora can bump her forehead against Catra’s, and she can press their noses together; and when Catra peeks open her mismatched eyes, Adora can make sure that hers are so soft and filled with love that they glow.

Catra’s lips twitch with a smile, and the blanket rustles as her tail twitches beneath it.

“Hey, Adora.” She murmurs. The blink of her tired eyes is slow, and Adora’s own smile crosses her lips.

“Hey, Catra.” She whispers, blinking slowly in return. Catra’s tail twitches again, and Adora thinks it might be a little stuck. So she lifts her arm slightly, raising the blanket; and is rewarded with its soft warmth as it drapes over her legs in affection. It’s not the same thing, but Adora’s arm settles around Catra’s waist; the length of her forearm resting against her back, and Adora thinks maybe Catra’s purr takes on a little more of a roll than a rumble.

Catra definitely wants to sleep, and Adora wants to, too. Can feel it weighing her down, satisfaction and fulfilment and sexual exhaustion fogging up her brain. But there’s a thrum of anticipation in her still, a nervous edge that won’t let her go until she asks.

And she better be quick, because Catra looks like she’s dozing off.

“How was it?” Adora whispers, her fingers scratching lightly at Catra’s back to keep her awake. A rather ill-thought move, because Catra melts into her with satisfaction, and then Adora has no choice but to keep going. “Catra?”  
  
“Mm,” is all she gets for a bit. Until she stops scratching, and Catra’s shoulders shift in a bid for her to continue. “Good,” she gets after that; and Adora allows herself to resume, something like pride glowing in her chest. Catra sighs lightly, shifts in her arms – only so she can tuck her head under Adora’s chin, turning hers to barely rub her jaw there in what must be the universe’s laziest attempt at scent-marking. And with Catra’s deep purr so close to her ear, Adora almost misses it when she follows it up, murmuring quietly against her: “Real good.”

Later on, Adora’s smugness will be unbearable. For now, it’s nothing but a bloom of happiness that begins in her stomach and grows a smile on her face; one that lasts through the burying of her face in Catra’s hair, and the squeezing of her arms around her, and eventually; until she falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> psa: do not go to fucking sleep with toys in oh my god. this is a work of sleep-deprived fiction and adora does not make good fiction-informed choices.


End file.
